


my heart and soul were never mine to own (what you care to die for?)

by qlexy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Funeralia, Gen, Sam-Centric, Suicide mention, allusions to past rape, allusions to self-harm, angst level: leo dicaprio not fitting on that door from titanic, episode 13x19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-25 19:21:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14385426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qlexy/pseuds/qlexy
Summary: Coda 13.19 (Funeralia) || After their encounter with the Reaper Jessica, Sam struggles with the ugly truths she brought to light.





	my heart and soul were never mine to own (what you care to die for?)

**Author's Note:**

> This is set pretty much directly after they talk to Jessica, but before they arrive in Portland and investigate the art gallery. Title's pulled from "Devil like me" by Rainbow Kitten Surprise.  
> Needless to say, this story contains spoilers for the episode. Please also heed the warnings I put in the tags, there's nothing explicit in here but the implications are there. 
> 
> If you like the story, consider leaving a comment or come talk to me on my tumblr [@sugarspunsam!](http://sugarspunsam.tumblr.com/)

_I’m around. Always._

The words echoed inside his head long after they had left Idaho in the dust. 

Dean had turned off the stereo at some point with a muttered “not in the mood” and Sam was grateful for the quiet. He doubted he would’ve been able to hear the music over his own rapid heartbeat anyway.

The car caged him in like it rarely did anymore and he had spent the first two hours after their surprise meeting glancing behind himself to check if she was here. It was pointless, of course, Reapers only made themselves known when they felt like it. 

Still, the uneasiness never quite vanished. 

Even Dean seemed to pick up on his anxiety after a time and suggested he get some rest - so that’s what he did, his temple against the windowpane. The pulsing ache in his side from remaining in one position for too long was unpleasant, but he dealt with worse on a regular basis. 

Sam ignored it, ignored the muffled static in his ears, too and continued to stare into blurred darkness. The problem was that the interstate looked bright and vivid in the mellow light of approaching dawn and his thoughts just wouldn’t leave him alone. 

When Lucifer was inside his head, he knew he was going crazy. But back there, a subtle press to his hand - just to be sure, just out of habit - had confirmed that all of it was real, no hallucinations. Dean saw her too, even more than that, he knew her by name and when she told them what Death had assigned her to do, he took it in stride. 

Sam didn’t understand. She said she saw _everything_. 

The implications hiding in her easy phrasing weren’t lost on him at all.

His room at the bunker had been a sanctuary, a quiet space to withdraw to when things got overwhelming. He felt safe inside its walls, an attribute he had never used for any kind of place before. Not even the Impala would be quite the same without Dean in it. 

He supposed that his safety had always relied on a _who_ , never on a _where_. And this, this was why. Because good things just weren’t meant to last and wasn’t that the story of his life? He’d bitterly miss the feeling though, of home and peace and something to look forward to after a particularly exhausting hunt. 

She’d taken this from him, left of it now only the ugly cracks in the walls, moments he liked to push to the very back of his mind but suddenly found he couldn’t anymore when he thought of invisible eyes watching his every move. 

She had no right, _no right -  
_

**x**

_Him, 2am, digging his nails into the pliant meat of his cheeks to hold himself together, never quite deep enough to leave permanent marks. He’s a silent cryer. It wasn’t always that way.  
_

**x** _  
_

_Samuel, standing in front of the bathroom mirror on bare feet and watching his reflection shiver against cold tiles. It hung too low for a man his size, cut off at his eyebrows once he rose to his full height (he rarely did these days)._  
_The thing that stares back at him blinks. “You don’t belong here,” it whispers saccharine-sweet. “You don’t belong anywhere.”  
_

**x** _  
_

_Sam, packing for a hunt. His gaze lingering on the gun in his hand while he wonders if maybe this time, it’s his own head he should be putting that bullet into.  
He’s terrified, but his hand doesn’t tremble. He feels like it should._

_(It didn’t matter. In the end, his brother would always be around to bring him back.)  
_

**x**

\- to witness him falling apart over nothing, to tear at the seams of what was his and his alone. None of it was her business (or Dean’s, or _anyone’s_ ) and there was a time when the anger about that burnt red hot inside his lungs and he wanted nothing more than something to lash out at, to scrub at his soiled skin until he felt numb from it  - 

But Sam was so, so tired. 

If everyone seemed entitled to the most vulnerable of him, then maybe it was time to accept his role in all of this. 

He _was_ the liability after all. The unstable one, the tainted one, holding on to his faith in people like the lifeline that kept his head above water. And it led him down the same road every time, on his way to Portland, Oregon to fix yet another one of his mistakes. 

He had wanted to believe in Rowena because he saw himself in her eyes.  
How many more hits like this one could he take? 

The stranger intruding on him certainly was another. She, her - 

_Jessica_. The Reaper, Jessica. Who else? It suited her, he thought. Fitting for a presence in the empty space around him. 

If she was entirely true to her words, if she had really seen everything, then she was choosing not to use his secrets against him in front of his brother. Instead a flippantly sexual comment about his hair that made him cringe involuntarily, laced with a threat Dean wouldn’t, couldn’t pick up on.  
  
Because Lucifer liked his hair, too. He made sure to tell him when his body was alight with His grace, a touch so cold that it charred his bones in its wake, chipping away at the parts of Sam as He became anew.  
He made sure to tell him too many times to keep track of after that. Inside him, just in different ways. 

And rationally, it wasn’t possible for her to know any of that, but the sharp, hungry look in her eyes intertwined with words that cut into his flesh told him a different story entirely. 

What did they really know about Reapers? 

_I’m especially fond of your impressive, extensive array of hair products._

Sam swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. Dean would kill him if he vomited in his car. 

Out of nowhere, the door slammed shut beside him and Sam startled. He had been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed they had stopped for gas and Dean only just now settled back into his seat.

He glanced at his brother on the driver’s side as he steered them back onto the road. His posture was rigid, tense and his eyes flickered from where Dean clenched the wheel in between his fingers to the way he rolled his shoulders in unsteady intervals, a clear tell of pressure he was attempting to relieve. 

Sam considered saying something, tasted the words carefully, felt the weight of them on his tongue. He didn’t like how the silence that had swept them up before now crackled with the expectation to be broken. 

Dean cursed under his breath as a passing car cut abruptly in front of them. The moment fled by without his notice. Sam snapped his mouth shut. 

This wasn’t something he knew how to explain. 

And the thought of someone listening from the backseat made his stomach churn unpleasantly.


End file.
